Guild Wars 2

“Tyria” is an old Dwarvish word. It apparently translates into the common tongue as “Scarlet’s Junkyard”.

I fully understand that they are trying to show us that the world physically changes… that it’s not static. They want it to feel “alive”.

So change it again! Clean up the mess! Everything is being destroyed, but nothing is being cleaned up (much less rebuilt). We’ve lived almost half of the game’s existence amongst Scarlet’s rubble. It doesn’t feel like a “living world” when so much of it looks dead.

There’s tons and tons of raw materials free for the taking in Kessex Hills and Lion’s Arch to build some fantastic cities. Make the world feel like a place we’d fight to protect.

For those of you who point to “realism”, and say “give them time”, I say phooey on you! Was it realistic that Scarlet built all of those monstrous structures in almost no time at all? Without the backing of several cities worth of people that the good guys have? …in total secrecy?

There have been lots of changes to this game since the beginning. Many of those have been hugely controversial. But the beauty and realism of the artwork are amongst the most unanimously positive aspects of the game. Stop destroying the one characteristic that almost everyone agrees is done right.

Wintersday is almost upon us. The most magical season of all is coming. Give us back the gift of our beautiful world. Please. Then perhaps the Durmand Priory scholars can reassess their translation of the word “Tyria”.

Hamfast.8719:

For those of you who point to “realism”, and say “give them time”

Give it time for realism, because realistically the new LA is probably still on the drawing table. I imagine we want to move away from Lion’s Arch being a pirate haven and make it more of a “city by the people, for the people” – the beacon of light for those who need a home. Lion’s Arch can be rebuilt as a symbol of Tyria’s unity instead of Tyria’s divide.

I do hope it’s something that they’re actually focusing on though. Lion’s Arch is far too important to be dismissed as a Scarlet casualty forever.

their artists can either draw you new maps like silverwastes or they can redraw old maps like la

they dont have enough manpower or budget for both

which do you pick?

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to realism and such: The game world does not necessarily move as fast as the real world.

We actually know for a fact that the attack on Lion’s Arch was more or less over and won within a day or two, and yet in real world time the attack took place for weeks.
It is also rather unlikely that the time between the Breachmaker and the current events are several months, but rather a few weeks at most.

Its been approximately eight months in the real world since the destruction of LA. Tyria uses a 2 real world hour day/night cycle. This means that eight months in the real world is approximately 96 months in game.

So it has been approximately eight years in game since LA was all but destroyed by Scarlet.

Cuddy.6247:

Hamfast.8719:

For those of you who point to “realism”, and say “give them time”

Give it time for realism, because realistically the new LA is probably still on the drawing table. I imagine we want to move away from Lion’s Arch being a pirate haven and make it more of a “city by the people, for the people” – the beacon of light for those who need a home. Lion’s Arch can be rebuilt as a symbol of Tyria’s unity instead of Tyria’s divide.

I do hope it’s something that they’re actually focusing on though. Lion’s Arch is far too important to be dismissed as a Scarlet casualty forever.

I hope they don’t change LA’s theme. In GW1 it was pretty unimpressive. Sure it had a castle and a few other stone buildings, but for the most part it was a couple of huts, a marketplace and a dock. And I loved that! It was the perfect contrast of backwater Kryta compared to the more impressive Ascalon City (which wasn’t even Ascalon’s capital, from all we know, Rin was even bigger and grander).
And it’s the same with the new LA. It has it’s own unique charm. It’s a patchwork city and that’s what’s so great about it. It isn’t as shiny as DR or RS. It’s at heart still that backwater capital by the sea it always was. It would be a crime to replace that with a generic shiny we-love-each-other-all-so-much Pact build bore fest.

Scarlet didn’t take a realistic time to build the Breachmaker or the Kessex Flower Tower. So at the very least cleaning up the rubble would not be unrealistic in the face of that precedent. And I am more than ready to go beyond mere cleanup and get on with (gasp!) rebuilding.

insanemaniac.2456:

their artists can either draw you new maps like silverwastes or they can redraw old maps like la

they dont have enough manpower or budget for both

which do you pick?

Well that’s a bit presumptuous and ridiculous. Have you attended some company manpower and budget meetings? Or are you just saying the first thing that came into your head in order to post something negative?

This company is geared towards releasing new content every two weeks. And despite the fact that they know their work will often be gone in a short time, they have still managed to produce some very nice settings. I have every faith that they can do this, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear that they already have “New LA” mostly ready to be deployed.

Between the Megaserver and the physical loss of Tyria’s social center, the game is darker and lonelier than ever. We need a bright spot for morale’s sake.

Hamfast.8719:

Scarlet didn’t take a realistic time to build the Breachmaker or the Kessex Flower Tower. So at the very least cleaning up the rubble would not be unrealistic in the face of that precedent. And I am more than ready to go beyond mere cleanup and get on with (gasp!) rebuilding.

insanemaniac.2456:

their artists can either draw you new maps like silverwastes or they can redraw old maps like la

they dont have enough manpower or budget for both

which do you pick?

Well that’s a bit presumptuous and ridiculous. Have you attended some company manpower and budget meetings? Or are you just saying the first thing that came into your head in order to post something negative?

This company is geared towards releasing new content every two weeks. And despite the fact that they know their work will often be gone in a short time, they have still managed to produce some very nice settings. I have every faith that they can do this, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear that they already have “New LA” mostly ready to be deployed.

Between the Megaserver and the physical loss of Tyria’s social center, the game is darker and lonelier than ever. We need a bright spot for morale’s sake.

+10

Hamfast.8719:

Scarlet didn’t take a realistic time to build the Breachmaker or the Kessex Flower Tower. So at the very least cleaning up the rubble would not be unrealistic in the face of that precedent. And I am more than ready to go beyond mere cleanup and get on with (gasp!) rebuilding.

insanemaniac.2456:

their artists can either draw you new maps like silverwastes or they can redraw old maps like la

they dont have enough manpower or budget for both

which do you pick?

Well that’s a bit presumptuous and ridiculous. Have you attended some company manpower and budget meetings? Or are you just saying the first thing that came into your head in order to post something negative?

This company is geared towards releasing new content every two weeks. And despite the fact that they know their work will often be gone in a short time, they have still managed to produce some very nice settings. I have every faith that they can do this, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear that they already have “New LA” mostly ready to be deployed.

Between the Megaserver and the physical loss of Tyria’s social center, the game is darker and lonelier than ever. We need a bright spot for morale’s sake.

presumptuous? yeah. ridiculous? no.

every time there is a new/redone map, there is only 1. they do not release in pairs. if they had ever released major map (re)designs in pairs, it would suggest to me that they had 2 teams for map (re)design. since they do not, i think they only have 1 map design team with a full plate.

if “new la” was ready for deployment, there would not be something beside it. and for now, the new map content we are getting is in silverwastes. sure, we get a few more workers every patch banging hammers in la but there isnt significant map work being released because the 1 team is focusing elsewhere and someone at anet is telling us “we havent forgotten about la but our people are busy atm”.

anet doesnt hold out on us, they want everything they have done to be in the game cuz its better for business and they love the game in general. but they only work on multiple things when they have different sections of the game to be working on, such as small balance patches + living story update, or big matchmaking overhauls during the living story, because those are different teams that do exist in parallel and have different people on them.

you expect too much from them, its unrealistic. get your head out of the clouds.

Ashen.2907:

Its been approximately eight months in the real world since the destruction of LA. Tyria uses a 2 real world hour day/night cycle. This means that eight months in the real world is approximately 96 months in game.

So it has been approximately eight years in game since LA was all but destroyed by Scarlet.

It doesn’t work like that. It’s still 1327 AE, the same year in which LA was destroyed. While there is a day/night cycle in-game, that’s more or less just for ambiance. The Living Story (and therefore"the present day") progresses at pretty much the same rate as real world time.

I am sure LA is done. The question is when anet thinks it makes sense to unveil it. One way to think about it is we are now at war with a new Dragon. Resources for rebuilding would be sent elsewhere.
As for revealing small sections this could give away too much from future directions of gameplay.
100% speculation on my part but frankly more likely than the lazy company posts above.

Yargesh.4965:

I am sure LA is done. The question is when anet thinks it makes sense to unveil it. One way to think about it is we are now at war with a new Dragon. Resources for rebuilding would be sent elsewhere.
As for revealing small sections this could give away too much from future directions of gameplay.
100% speculation on my part but frankly more likely than the lazy company posts above.

im looking for “lazy” and not seeing it anywhere

Hamfast.8719:

“Tyria” is an old Dwarvish word. It apparently translates into the common tongue as “Scarlet’s Junkyard”.

I fully understand that they are trying to show us that the world physically changes… that it’s not static. They want it to feel “alive”.

So change it again! Clean up the mess! Everything is being destroyed, but nothing is being cleaned up (much less rebuilt). We’ve lived almost half of the game’s existence amongst Scarlet’s rubble. It doesn’t feel like a “living world” when so much of it looks dead.

There’s tons and tons of raw materials free for the taking in Kessex Hills and Lion’s Arch to build some fantastic cities. Make the world feel like a place we’d fight to protect.

For those of you who point to “realism”, and say “give them time”, I say phooey on you! Was it realistic that Scarlet built all of those monstrous structures in almost no time at all? Without the backing of several cities worth of people that the good guys have? …in total secrecy?

There have been lots of changes to this game since the beginning. Many of those have been hugely controversial. But the beauty and realism of the artwork are amongst the most unanimously positive aspects of the game. Stop destroying the one characteristic that almost everyone agrees is done right.

Wintersday is almost upon us. The most magical season of all is coming. Give us back the gift of our beautiful world. Please. Then perhaps the Durmand Priory scholars can reassess their translation of the word “Tyria”.

Hear hear! Less destruction!

The world is so beautiful. It killed me to see LA destroyed and Kessex Hills isn’t pretty anymore either… I’m very afraid that they’ll destroy the Grove too now. And it’s my favourite place in Tyria, together with Caledon Forest.

insanemaniac.2456:

Yargesh.4965:

I am sure LA is done. The question is when anet thinks it makes sense to unveil it. One way to think about it is we are now at war with a new Dragon. Resources for rebuilding would be sent elsewhere.
As for revealing small sections this could give away too much from future directions of gameplay.
100% speculation on my part but frankly more likely than the lazy company posts above.

im looking for “lazy” and not seeing it anywhere

I thought the bit where the OP wrote about things being destroyed and nothing being done over time could be interpreted as lazy.

Hamfast.8719:

“Tyria” is an old Dwarvish word. It apparently translates into the common tongue as “Scarlet’s Junkyard”.

I fully understand that they are trying to show us that the world physically changes… that it’s not static. They want it to feel “alive”.

So change it again! Clean up the mess! Everything is being destroyed, but nothing is being cleaned up (much less rebuilt). We’ve lived almost half of the game’s existence amongst Scarlet’s rubble. It doesn’t feel like a “living world” when so much of it looks dead.

To me the biggest problem of the Living Story is time as a factor. We only get pieces of the LS every few weeks or even month. If you remember the recap of the LS 1, it was totally different to the experiences of it live by playing. It’s like watching a movie for 10 minutes, waiting 2 weeks and begin to watch the next 10 minutes…It just doesn’t feel organic/living.

So in this context i think Lion’s Arch won’t be rebuilt before the threat is eliminated. Remember what happened: Scarlet prepared to attack LA and finally destroyed LA, a charity was hold by the Zephyrites, then the Zephyrites were attacked and now we are fighting. There isn’t much time between these events. Also i think that such events like the Tower of Nightmare, the Marionette or Molten Facility was meant to happen apart the awareness of most citizens of Tyria. So it was a big surprise ending in a desaster quite fast.

I like fighting headfirst, but sometimes I wish we’d foil the enemy’s plans at the cost of being pulled to another dimension, so we could break stuff in there and keep the beautiful landscapes intact. I feel so much for Kessex Hills…

I’d settle for them returning Lion’s Arch (and other changed areas if necessary) to it’s (their) original appearance(s) while in the Person Story (with if I recall correctly is set in the game world’s past and as such should be in the original version of the world.

Wanna bet that Mordremoth will pop up from the Breachmaker’s rubble and destroy LA again?

For what they should waste resources on fixing LA for a day or two?
Let’s rekt LA while it’s still a pile of rubble.

yes, yes, poor LA, but come on. There is always a sacrificial Lamb

Yargesh.4965:

I thought the bit where the OP wrote about things being destroyed and nothing being done over time could be interpreted as lazy.

…not my intention to imply ANet is being lazy – as I said, it’s my belief that it’s probably nearly ready for us right now, waiting on just the “right time” to be implemented. Although if you want “lazy”, those workers smacking the same nail for months on end are obviously paid by the hour.

I am more than ready now, ANet! Please make this happen! End the year – and better yet begin next year – on a high note!

My guess is that we’ll see a rebuilt LA only after Mordremoth is dead. Something along the lines of: “The threat is finally dealt with, now we can focus on reclaiming what we’ve lost”. The rebuilding is probably something they want to implement as part of the story, not just some update in between. So my guess is sometimes next year, but definitely not before by Wintersday.

Which is a shame, really. AFK’ing in LA doesn’t feel the same when everything is brown, grey and broken.

insanemaniac.2456:

their artists can either draw you new maps like silverwastes or they can redraw old maps like la

they dont have enough manpower or budget for both

which do you pick?

I would drop the social hub aspect and turn Lion’s Arch into a gritty city zone with two, maybe three big crime bosses vying for power, and various gangs, some affiliated with crime bosses, some independent, roaming the streets in endless conflicts over territory and resources. Throw in an unhealthy dose of less pleasant things oozing up from the sewers or crawling out of the sea or dropping out of the skies or just wandering in through unguarded gates. Along with no shortage of regular folks struggling to live in this sprawling shipwreck of a city, almost constantly in need of heroic assistance. Our characters would go in to help clean things up — or to carve out a piece of the action for themselves.

lordkrall.7241:

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to realism and such: The game world does not necessarily move as fast as the real world.

We actually know for a fact that the attack on Lion’s Arch was more or less over and won within a day or two, and yet in real world time the attack took place for weeks.
It is also rather unlikely that the time between the Breachmaker and the current events are several months, but rather a few weeks at most.

No. They changed the calendar to be in line with the real world so it was indeed two weeks for the attack/retake of LA. Anet shot themselves in the foot with the calendar changes, let them live with the consequences.

Pha.5693:

Hamfast.8719:

“Tyria” is an old Dwarvish word. It apparently translates into the common tongue as “Scarlet’s Junkyard”.

I fully understand that they are trying to show us that the world physically changes… that it’s not static. They want it to feel “alive”.

So change it again! Clean up the mess! Everything is being destroyed, but nothing is being cleaned up (much less rebuilt). We’ve lived almost half of the game’s existence amongst Scarlet’s rubble. It doesn’t feel like a “living world” when so much of it looks dead.

There’s tons and tons of raw materials free for the taking in Kessex Hills and Lion’s Arch to build some fantastic cities. Make the world feel like a place we’d fight to protect.

For those of you who point to “realism”, and say “give them time”, I say phooey on you! Was it realistic that Scarlet built all of those monstrous structures in almost no time at all? Without the backing of several cities worth of people that the good guys have? …in total secrecy?

There have been lots of changes to this game since the beginning. Many of those have been hugely controversial. But the beauty and realism of the artwork are amongst the most unanimously positive aspects of the game. Stop destroying the one characteristic that almost everyone agrees is done right.

Wintersday is almost upon us. The most magical season of all is coming. Give us back the gift of our beautiful world. Please. Then perhaps the Durmand Priory scholars can reassess their translation of the word “Tyria”.

Hear hear! Less destruction!

The world is so beautiful. It killed me to see LA destroyed and Kessex Hills isn’t pretty anymore either… I’m very afraid that they’ll destroy the Grove too now. And it’s my favourite place in Tyria, together with Caledon Forest.

kitten it I say!!! We need more death and destruction!! Only a game where the dead bodies are piling left and right is a good game. Let Cantha invade Tyria and unleash the world war!
Also I think Tyria rather means “prison” or “madness” judging from the living story now.

Mada.5319:

No. They changed the calendar to be in line with the real world so it was indeed two weeks for the attack/retake of LA. Anet shot themselves in the foot with the calendar changes, let them live with the consequences.

Wasn’t that change more to help add logic to the seasonal events though?

We do actually know for a fact that several thing that took weeks in the game were in lore done rather swiftly. Such as the destruction of the Marionette and the Battle of Lion’s Arch.

They did add a bit of a story on tumblr (I think?) about a company in the Battle, and that makes it rather clear that the city was retaken rather shortly after the initial attack.

Schwarzseher.9873:

Let Cantha invade Tyria and unleash the world war!

Cantha will be a long time in recovering. One of my GW1 characters accidentally dropped a match in Kaineng City, which pretty much wiped out half the Factions map. (That’s what they get for building a gigantic city using the Second Little Pig as their General Contractor.)

I was thinking the same thing.

Kessex Hills and Lion’s Arch are two areas that were ravaged by the Living Story and were never really restored back to their original glory (at least not yet).

They are littered with debris, and still look like a bomb just went off.

I was hoping that Arenanet could maybe add a renown heart or some sort of event to Lions Arch that would allow players to pitch in a little. (Like taking pickaxes to misplaced boulders, collecting pieces of scrap metal, you know the basic event nonsense) and maybe Arenanet would restore Lion’s Arch a bit more for the next LS update.